


Blackbird

by enmity



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/M, Incest, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: She knew him well enough to know that he had not changed a bit.





	Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

> REQUESTED. shghdgfgs i tried

Her brother had gone on to college while she studied in some other boarding school, and by sophomore year Kozue had learned to avoid the magazines altogether. Grainy newspaper ink she could stand, and the channel she could change, but seeing her brother’s face printed in color on glossy spreads arrested her attention like nothing else.

There was an unreal quality to the pictures, she thought. Technology was advancing, and with it people’s predilection to make things seem more beautiful than they really were—blemishes airbrushed out as the light tilted to favor all your good angles. She was smarter than that, though.

The years had filled him out, deepened his voice, but his smile still crinkled the way it did six years ago, a measured line of unhappiness curved just enough to pass for a polite greeting, and although the boy-almost-man who looked through her in the pictures grew steadily less and less like the Miki she recalled from the blur of their childhood memories, she knew him well enough to know that he had not changed a bit.

He’d grown taller, heavier, almost typical for a boy his age, but the crowd of adults preening themselves around his spotlight remained so much bigger than him, their faces identical with palms on his shoulder or reached out towards his for a handshake, and sometimes she couldn’t quite settle on who sickened her more: them, who knew better—Miki, _stupid_, typical Miki, who didn’t, _of course_ he wouldn’t, he was so helpless without her—or herself, halfway across the country gripping a flimsy tabloid, unable to offer herself up to be corrupted in his stead. The only protection she could ever afford him, and now that was gone too. There was nothing she could do.

So she threw away the magazines. Grew her hair out, then chopped it back off. Made friends, lost them, got a tan, got older. Graduated.

But in the dark she still looked back to the glittering shell of the world her brother had retreated into.

If she reached out, she might still be able to claw herself in and save him. _Might._

But she’d tried that once before, hadn’t she?

—

At eighteen Kozue awoke to footsteps downstairs. How foolish of him, was her first thought; she’d always been a light sleeper, after all. It was the first week of summer holiday. Her father was away, always away, and for a moment she tried to remember why she was even home in the first place.

She rubbed listless circles around her eyes and padded to the first floor, where Miki stood by the hated piano, gaze turned towards the window, forefinger trailing a pallid line along the dusty lid. The garden had gone to seed, and in the wan light of early morning, nothing sparkled anymore.

Kozue touched him lightly on the shoulder. The face he turned towards her looked rather tired, and his surprise was just a little too exact.

“Miki.”

“Kozue,” he replied. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

She sighed. But the smile came just a little too easily to her.

“Silly Miki. You could never get rid of me,” she said. “I’m always here. Isn’t that why you returned?”

He blinked, hard, and didn’t answer. For a moment, her reflection in his eyes looked almost like a stranger, and in the resounding silence, that might have counted as a victory.


End file.
